


Monsters of the Deep

by Mistress_Siana



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Battle of Five Armies, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Kinkmeme, Major Character Injury, Minor Canonical Character(s), Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:12:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistress_Siana/pseuds/Mistress_Siana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this prompt on http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/:</p><p>Thorin/Dís after BoFA. Thorin survives, but Fili and Kili are dead. Their shared grief leads to a shared bed.</p><p>"A hundred years of wandering, and now that he's arrived, he looks lost. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters of the Deep

**Monsters of the Deep**

 

She listens.

The mountain stands in cold silence; birds and other beasts are slowly returning now that Smaug is dead, but their cries are far and few in between. Somewhere in the distance the Celduin gurgles and splashes, not yet as powerful as it will be a few hundred miles down south. She remembers following it through the wide eastern plains, searching the cities of Men for work and food. The travellers were many and brought dialects of kingdoms old and new: Esgaroth, Rhovanion, Rohan, Gondor. She was only ten and picked up their tongues easily. 

Now, there is no language known to Dwarves or Men to tell of her pain. There are no words. Dís grieves for her sons in silence, as befits a daughter of kings.

When Thorin doesn't wake for three days, she commands the many who stand vigil to sing. A woman she may be, but those who knew her sons obey. The songs they sing aren't sad; they speak of Thorin's victory, of the ruin of Azog the Defiler, and of her children's unmatched bravery.

Dís stands proud and cold and hollow as the mountain, listening. Dúrin's line shan't fail, they sing. She smiles bitterly. _Only you and I left, brother._ And not even that is certain.

She watches over Thorin every day and every night, washes his wounds and feels the fever on his brow. She wonders if he will ever heal, even if he lives, and if a good sister should wish him death. But she, too, is of the line of Dúrin, and greed is in her blood. She wants him alive.

 -

“Sister.” His voice is strained, breaking halfway through the word. She's been sitting with her eyes closed, half asleep. He's still weak, his senses dulled, and there's a moment of joy on his face before he remembers. He must tell her, she thinks. One day, he must tell her what is not in the songs, what he saw, and how he dare live when her children are dead.

Some other day.

“Be still,” she says. “You must rest.” She gives him water, which he half-spills, and brushes a strand of hair from his face. She smiles, but he doesn't see it.

 -

Fíli and Kíli lie side by side, deep under the mountain - the home they never knew. Thorin stands before them as they stood before him, if the songs tell the truth. His hair is unbraided, his beard trimmed in mourning. She can see he's in pain; the old wizard ordered him to rest, but Thorin's stubbornness is all but far-famed by now. He may even welcome it – she would welcome it, she thinks; some token of her pain, some wound she could dress and care for in the knowledge it would heal.

The mighty Thorin Oakenshield has no words of comfort for his sister, and it suits her fine. What is there to say? What, that would not make her rage? She walks up beside him and offers a smile that he doesn't return. She studies him carefully. It's strange, she thinks; a hundred years of wandering, and now that he's arrived, he looks lost.

And then, out of the blue, he hugs her. It's a desperate hug, one that freezes her beneath her heavy furs. He holds her so close it almost hurts, twisting her coat in his fists and burying his head in her hair. They stand like this, quietly, for a long while, until she gently breaks away.

She takes his head into her hands and kisses him softly on the forehead, the cheek, the lips, and there, without thinking, she lingers. It is innocent, no more than a loving gesture, until it lasts a heartbeat too long. She can feel his grip tighten on her shoulder before he suddenly inhales sharply and pulls back.

There is grief in his steel and silver eyes, and affection, and something else, too. The same thing that she saw in her grandfather's eyes when he talked about gold and treasure and the fabled Arkenstone. The same thing that drove the Lords of Khazad-dûm to delve so far into mithril-veined earth they woke a monster in the deep. Dís wonders if he can see it in her, too.

They stand in silence, and the moment passes.

 -

Sleep has never been a friend of hers. Thorin is the same, as was their father, who used to be seen wandering aimlessly around in the wild when they crossed the plains of Rhovanion so many years ago. Frerin always slept like a babe in arms.

Frerin was younger than Kíli, even.

Her terror is sudden, a crack in the numbness that keeps her from going mad. She wants to scratch her face and pull her hair until she bleeds to make it stop hurting. She wants to take an axe and hunt after goblins until the very last of them lies dead and bloody in a pit, or until Mahal has mercy on her and calls her home. Her resolve is gone. Dís is no longer a daughter of kings, she's a grieving mother, and so very alone.

She finds Thorin sleepless, sitting on the edge of his bed, with his famed elf-made sword on the knees. It's too late, she thinks. _No matter how often you sharpen the thing, the battle is over. It is too late._

He waits for her to speak, and she stands in his chambers like an intruder. The silence between them is that of the battlefield: if you lose so many there's not even place to bury them all, what can you say?

Without thinking, she walks over to him and takes the blade out of his hands. Softly, she places her hand over his mouth, as if to swear him to secrecy.

Thorin regards her solemnly. Their lives have often been separate, but underneath, they're hewn from the same stone. He understands. He doesn't protest. He places a soft kiss on her wrist as her hand slides away from his mouth to cup his face, and that's when they both close their eyes in something akin to shame. She sinks into his lap, more feeling than seeing, navigating his many injuries.

She laughs, almost. She loves her brother, fiercely and faithfully; she would die for him in an instant, and yet she curses how dearly his life was bought.

When she kisses him, she means it to hurt.

The law they're breaking is their own, she thinks; that of Dúrin and his heirs; theirs to make and theirs to break (and be it Mahal's own rule - she doesn't fear him. There can be no worse fate than that which she's already been dealt).

She runs her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp, grabs a handful and pulls his head back. Thorin lets her - he who bows to no one, who would rather break than bend an inch; he needs her forgiveness, and in return he'd give her anything if he only knew what. She presses her body against his, clutching at his rough-spun shirt, looking for warmth, looking for something, presses her lips against his cheek and wants to say the right words, but she can't. 

“I'm lost,” she says instead. She can feel his breath on her neck.

“And I,” he replies. His arms are locked around her, and she thinks of a time when she was a young girl sitting on her brother's lap. She remembers so little from their time in Erebor. Were they ever children together? She doesn't know.

“I'm tired,” she whispers. “Let us sleep.”

Carefully, she pulls his shirt over his head and then rises to remove her own gown. He doesn't look at her the way men look at a woman they desire. There is a darkness in his eyes, but he doesn't allow her to see it; he averts his gaze and yet pulls her towards him, kisses the curve of her waist, his hair brushing against skin so sensitive she gasps.

“Thorin,” she says. “Wait.”

She goes to extinguish the torches on the wall, and darkness engulfs them.

It makes it easier, taking away some of the wrongness of it all. She had a family of her own and survived them all. He has no wife, no children, no consort, and if he ever loved anyone, she doesn't know.

_Only you and I left, brother. Everyone else is gone._

They fall into bed together, quietly, and she clings to the shadow of his body. His hands are rough on her, betraying years of self-restraint, and need, and pain. He won't speak of the pain – his pride doesn't allow it - but Dís can read it in the way he moves. It breaks her heart. She pulls him on top of her, and the feeling of his weight on her is comforting.

He makes a soft, growling sound muffled by her hair, and cups her face in a way that's both rough and strangely gentle. Dís smiles. He can be kind if he wishes to, to anyone but himself. She arches into him, eyes closed, running her hands down his back and between them to unlace his breeches.

Thorin freezes, as if suddenly pulled out of a frenzy.

“You are my sister,” he whispers into the curve of her neck, and she can feel the sound of his voice inside her, like ripples on water, and the silence that follows leaves her feeling hollow. His breath is hot against her skin, and she doesn't want to let him go.

“You are the king,” she says. “Rule, then.”

There is anger in her voice. She doesn't even know what she means by it, except that his kingdom cost him so much, it must be worth something. All their sacrifices, they must be enough to pay for a moment of solace.

Thorin doesn't move. Of course not, she thinks. He doesn't take orders, not from anyone. She suddenly wonders if this final quest of his has left him changed, if he's no longer the man she used to know, and if she needs to be afraid of him. And then he shifts, grabs her harshly by the shoulder, and the kiss on her neck turns into a bite. She laughs and repays him in kind, scratching her nails over his hips, and this time he doesn't object when she pushes his breeches down.

Dís remembers the halls filled with gold. Her grandfather screaming for it for days on the road, when others were mourning their dead. She remembers her father: lamed, battered, broken, and mumbling to himself as he turned his ring around his finger. Thorin, a hundred years later, speaking of one thing and one thing only, until her sons' eyes were shining with lust for honour and gold.

It's madness that's driving us together, she thinks. A madness as only we know it; an emptiness too deep and too dark that needs to be filled with something. A hunger that eats us alive.

She wraps her legs around him as he pushes into her, holding him tight, driving her fingers into his flesh as if to get under his skin. Azog and a hundred orcs left their mark on him, and she almost wants to be one of them, to leave scars that say _I'm Dís, daughter of Thráin, and there's a part of Thorin Oakenshield that belongs to me._

He shifts and slides his arm under her back, reaching around her shoulder to pull her closer. His strength is almost uncanny, but his rhythm is jagged; she knows he must be hurting, even if he's too far gone to care. She buries her head in the curve of his neck and whispers his name, his hair falling over her face. She's beginning to lose herself in sensations and decides to give in, her hand slipping languidly from his shoulder and onto the sheet besides her. Thorin moves his hand onto hers, roughly, locking their fingers together, holding her down with his weight. Dís returns the pressure, smiles, and falls apart.

-

They lie still afterwards, breathing in the same rhythm. He's warm and heavy on top of her, still inside her, as she trails shaky fingers up and down his side. There's a half-healed scar right below his arm where Azog's sword missed his heart just barely, and she knows two ribs were broken just underneath. Dís bites her lips in sadness, and now, weeks after the battle, she's finally tired enough to brave the question.

“Did they suffer?'

Thorin might have lied to spare her pain, but with his body so close, she can read his mind in the way his breath hitches and his muscles tense. It's all the answer she needs, and he knows it.

He presses his face against hers, and minutes later, when he finally speaks, his voice is barely more than wind on her skin.

“Forgive me,” he says. And then again, and again, until she thinks she'd do anything just to make him stop.

-

That night, lying naked in her brother's arms, Dís dreams of gold resting heavy on the bones of thousands. When she wakes, she's alone.

-

She finds Thorin standing in the treasure hall, looking every inch a king. He's to be crowned today, with elves and men come from far away to pay their respects. Gold and rubies spill through his fingers, and the many blazing fires cast a ring of flickering shadows around him.

Dís watches. His hand is clumsy and slightly shaking; he'll never hold a sword, or bow, or harp again the way he used to.

She goes to stand by his side, proud and regal, as is expected of Dís of the house of Dúrin, sister to the King Under the Mountain. She takes his hand in hers and holds it tight until it feels steady.

Some days they are close, some days there is a world between them. Some other day, her question might have sounded spiteful.

“Was is worth it?” she asks. “In the end?”

Thorin does not answer. Not then, and not ever.

 


End file.
